Why Worldbuilding is Bad

[Raven Crowking]

http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=3515172&postcount=732

You're welcome. (Note, it's been a while, so, I've added my original line to the quote.

I don't see anything there that supports your original line, though.

There is nothing even remotely like your assertation of

But, I'm also being told that in order to have a campaign with depth, I need to do a complete gazateer, even for the 95% of stuff that I'm not going to use.​

 

[Raven Crowking]

The idea that you must engage in world building to create a deep, impacting setting is pretty heavily ingrained in a lot of people's mindsets.

But, when saying that, you must take into account that they are talking about worldbuilding as they define it, not worldbuilding as you define it.

 

[prosfilaes]

Niven's a good example of an author who kept the level of detail in his imaginary universe pretty low. Memorable, but low.

In one of his books, N-Space I believe, Niven mentions that he created the details for the jump drive used in The Mote in God's Eye, down to fourth-order differential equations for something. He did a lot of world-building behind something that didn't really matter in the course of the story.

 

[Raven Crowking]

In one of his books, N-Space I believe, Niven mentions that he created the details for the jump drive used in The Mote in God's Eye, down to fourth-order differential equations for something. He did a lot of world-building behind something that didn't really matter in the course of the story.

Which is, perhaps, why the details were memorable?

 

[Celebrim]

Fair enough, but, otoh, we've got people here emphatically stating that a setting without world building leads to railroaded, mindless dungeon crawls with zero depth. That's not a fair characterization either. One doesn't need world building in order to construct setting.

Do you notice the shift in meaning between one sentence and the next? You can't construct an argument around that sort of shell game and expect anyone to take it seriously.

In one sentence we are speaking of the medium of literature, and in another sentence we are speaking of a role playing game. They have similarities, but you can't equate the two completely. Even if I fully agree, as I have, that "one doesn't need world building in order to construct setting" in a novel, it doesn't necessarily follow that I agree that it follows that one doesn't need world building in order to construct a role playing game. I can fully agree that one doesn't need visual effects to present a story in a novel, but it would not follow that I think that no visuals is a good way to present a movie. They may both be the same super-type of narrative art, but they have different pecularities unique to them (otherwise we wouldn't need a separate word for 'role-playing game' when we already had novel or story or epic or whatever).

Therefore, rounsers point that world building is essential to well constructed role playing game is not at all harmed by my agreement that it is not essential to a well constructed novel. Just how essential world-building is to a role playing game, I'm not entirely sure. To a dungeon crawl, it is comparitively unessential, though I tend to find dungeon crawls that are based on prepared maps and notes and have some thought put into why the inhabitants of the dungeon are there and what they are doing are more compelling than ones that lack that thought. But, to the sort of games I wish to play, I at least find it essential and do not believe I could run a game without some sort of world building.

And that's just from the first two pages. Rounser does have a point. The idea that you must engage in world building to create a deep, impacting setting is pretty heavily ingrained in a lot of people's mindsets.

And probably for very good reason. There maybe a handful of DMs that can improv thier way through a deep, thoughtful, and engaging setting without any of the forethought and preparation into the setting that I have previously defined as world building but if there are, and I've never met one, they are few and far between. The vast majority of DMs require notes, thought experiments, maps, demographics, and some thought on culture its role in local government, a bit of couriousity about how the characters of the story live, and so forth before they can run a mature and engrossing campaign. And even if you can dispense with these things, its not clear that the session might not have been better with them.

As proof that the assertion that world building is not essential to a role playing is probably ill-founded, lets consider the example of a massively multiplayer online role playing game. In this case, whatever is not in your setting bible, whatever is not added to the game in great detail, whatever is not planned simply doesn't exist. Every detail of the world must be placed into it at every level, from the smallest to the largest, if it is to be part of the game. It would be very hard indeed to argue that such games don't benefit from world building.

World building is not as essential to pen and paper games as it is to computer games, but that doesn't mean it isn't important.

The fact that RPG companies crank out setting book after setting book shows how ingrained this is.

That's one interpretation of this fact. I can think of ones that are more logical.

 

[rounser]

As proof that the assertion that world building is not essential to a role playing is probably ill-founded, lets consider the example of a massively multiplayer online role playing game.

Which are completely and utterly boring and pointless if it's devoid of quests aka adventures. No-one cares that Duke Leeto runs the city of Sargrah if there's no opportunity to go get phat loot through actual adventure, so you may as well shut up shop right now if worldbuilding is all you have to offer.

I can think of ones that are more logical.

Here's one; a lot of people prefer to daydream about the game rather than play it, and buy books conducive to that (I'm looking at you, setting material). It's why so many dubiously useful books get sold, and so little of the material of many books actually ever reach play. Setting tomes are perhaps the number one offender in this respect.

People slowly coming to realise that led to the "crunch good, fluff bad" backlash, which was perhaps an oblique way of pointing out that worldbuilding is far too often only dubiously useful to running the actual game. Yet more fuel for the fire.

 

[Imaro]

People slowly coming to realise that led to the "crunch good, fluff bad" backlash, which was perhaps an oblique way of pointing out that worldbuilding is far too often only dubiously useful to running the actual game. Yet more fuel for the fire.

If you say so. I though it was more players than DM's, so more players to purchase books than DM's, so more books with crunch for players= more books sold just off numbers.

While we're on the subject of sales...How well do adventures sell? I mean if we're wasting all this time on worldbuilding, we gotta be getting our adventures from somewhere...right?

 

[rounser]

While we're on the subject of sales...How well do adventures sell? I mean if we're wasting all this time on worldbuilding, we gotta be getting our adventures from somewhere...right?

A few observations:

1) Traditionally, 32 page adventures haven't sold, yet there seems to be a lot of interest in Adventure Paths, because rather than string together half a dozen unrelated piddling little 32 page vignettes together into a setting that's probably arbitrarily ruled over half of them out for reasons covered in this thread, Adventure Paths are the campaign, and the setting must bow to it or you may as well not bother playing it. Why it's taken 30 years to get to the point where 256 page adventures are becoming the norm and are finally taking priority over extraneous setting nonsense like "FR, GH or Eberron?" is beyond me. I'd estimate that more people have played the Paizo adventure path modules than any other set of adventures in Dungeon.

2) Refer to my point about people liking to buy products as much or moreso for daydreaming purposes as for actual use in play. Setting material is marvellous for this purpose, because it's a good read (adventures generally aren't save for the DM's background), letting you dream of grandious campaigns that never might be etc. No wonder it sells better than adventures. It sells well for the same reason that homebrew worldbuilding is so popular - you can focus on and daydream about the sexy macro aspects of the game, and ignore the tedious nitty gritty of stats and encounters. I wonder how many people who bought the FR Underdark book went on to run an Underdark campaign? I suspect that plenty of them just toyed with the idea, and said "one day" before shelving the book. But I could be wrong.

3) Good fully prepped adventures are hard to write, and as a result many published adventures kind of suck. Setting tomes can hide their flaws in wishy-washiness and broadly painted strokes, and even if the material sucks for actual play purposes it can always end up a good read regardless. Adventure design has no such luxury, because it has to be specific - it's what actually gets played, and doesn't lend itself to being a good read beyond the intro, so can't fall back on that. No wonder people often look at what's on offer and think "I can do better", especially if they're mostly 32 pagers that need adapting, making it even less worth the effort.

 

[Hussar]

I don't think anyone, and I may be wrong, that's argued "for worldbuilding" has claimed you "must" do it. These whole thread was started with the assumption that "worldbuilding is bad" continued to a further point that "world building is a waste of time" by both you and rounser. If anything the arguments for worldbuilding have been to defend it against being considered a "waste"...which IMHO is a totally subjective thing anyway. You and rounser have steadily preached your one wayism without consideration for both personal prefrence and utility beyond your view of the utility of worldbuilding.

If anything, in the quotes you've posted, I've seen people take you and rounser's theory of "design a bunch of encounters" to the same extreme that you've used to bash worldbuilding...All I can say is what goes around comes around. None of these posts say you have to do worldbuilding to play the game or even have fun with the game. What I read indictaes that for a certain style of play depth the method of worldbuilding helps these people and is appreciated by theior players. Why is the concept that worldbuilding might not be a total waste, dependant upon the people you play with, so hard to grasp.

I would point out that the quotes I posted are all from before Rounser or I got involved in this thread. Thus, the backlash was up long before I even got going.

And probably for very good reason. There maybe a handful of DMs that can improv thier way through a deep, thoughtful, and engaging setting without any of the forethought and preparation into the setting that I have previously defined as world building but if there are, and I've never met one, they are few and far between. The vast majority of DMs require notes, thought experiments, maps, demographics, and some thought on culture its role in local government, a bit of couriousity about how the characters of the story live, and so forth before they can run a mature and engrossing campaign. And even if you can dispense with these things, its not clear that the session might not have been better with them.

Why does a lack of world building equate with improv DMing though? That's only true if you assume that all setting creation is world building. Also, my point is that DM's don't require notes, thought experiments etc. What has happened is that we, as DM's have been trained to think this way.

Originally, there was very, very little world building going on in published material. Modules were vignettes, as Rounser points out, with little, if anything of the world around them being covered. It wasn't until TSR and later WOTC figured out that they can have a sweet little cash cow going by feeding reams of mostly irrelavent material to gamers. TSR probably went too far in that direction by whacking out setting after setting and not paying any attention to things like modules and the like.

On a smaller scale, look at Sword and Sorcery Press and Scarred Lands. Book after book of setting material. I've got most of them. Yet, for all of that, three modules. And what happened? The setting died. Why? Because it got to the point where, if you wanted to run a SL campaign, you had to wade through several hundred pages of crap to find that one nugget that might stand out and make an impression on your players.

Compare that to Freeport. Three modules, also from a d20 publisher. Later, the setting bible came, after the interest was there, mostly, again, to feed the clodding nerds who feel the need to know exactly how many widgets there are. While Freeport may not be a runaway success, the fact that it survived the move to 3.5 and is still seeing material produced for it does show that you don't need world building to have a great setting.

I admit that I've changed my tune. I'm not saying that world building is bad. I believe I was wrong there. It's not bad. But, I do believe that it's an indulgence. It's not necessary. Or, rather, it's not as necessary as some are making it out to be. We don't need Monster Ecology articles in Dragon to tell us how to run an Ythrak. We don't need to know the breeding habits of manticores.

And don't tell me that that isn't world building, because it damn well is.

Celebrim, you bring up the idea of MMORPG's. But, again, why do people play them? Or, rather, what is the main draw? Is the main draw to look at the pretty pictures? To explore the history of the setting? Or to kill stuff, gain levels, and kill more stuff? Sure, you need the setting. Of course, and we all agree on that. We need some sort of context, because that's needed for the action.

But, how many people stopped reading the backgrounds in those books you found in Baldur's Gate after the second or third one? How much did that add to the game? What do you remember about Baldur's Gate or its follow ups? The stories in those books, or beating the living crap out of Saravok?

See, everyone keeps saying that if you don't world build, then your settings are contradictory and flat, lacking in depth. But, that's simply isn't true. No one would say that Freeport is lacking in depth. Or Shackled City. Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil may be repetitive in places, but, it's not exactly a boring ride. City of the Spider Queen is bloody great fun.

I know this is coming out as a one true way sort of thing. And I really don't mean it to. However, there really is a point here. If setting bibles were the greatest thing to gaming, that would be one thing, but they aren't. Campaigns can function perfectly well without them. We've been conditioned over the past couple of decades that we must have reams of setting material in order to have a decent setting. After all, why would there be enough Forgotten Realms material to fill a small library if it was completely unnecessary? Could it possibly be, is there not the slightest possibility that we've been doing things a bit back assward for years? That instead of bottom up or top down setting creation, we should focus on campaign creation and then let whatever setting come out of the necessities of that?

 

[Ourph]

Why does a lack of world building equate with improv DMing though? That's only true if you assume that all setting creation is world building.

I have yet to hear anyone from the other side give a reasonable explanation as to how setting creation and worldbuilding aren't two names for exactly the same thing. However, I do agree with your main point here, which is that lack of worldbuilding doesn't equate to improv DMing or to be more precise, improv DMing doesn't equate to a lack of worldbuilding. Even if you are engaging in improv worldbuilding, you are still worldbuilding.